Business Development Manager

Job Title: Business Development Manager

Occupational Level: Professional & Mid-Management

Job Family: Sales & Product Growth

Reporting to: Head of Sales / Chief Commercial Officer

Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Squad Classification: Hybrid/Remote

Employment Type: Full-time

Direct Reports: 0 (with potential to scale)

About eComplete

We create and manage the perfect environment in which eCommerce thrives. Our first-of-a-kind, fully-managed, end-to-end eCommerce solution helps brands and retailers get to market at a fraction of the time and cost. We manage the entire eCommerce journey – from click to delivery – enabling our clients to stay focused on what they do best.

As part of the Smollan Group, we operate at the intersection of retail, technology, and digital commerce — building and commercialising products that power how brands sell across DTC, B2B, and Marketplaces (Takealot, Amazon, and beyond). Our mission is to ignite more eCommerce globally and to connect customers with their favourite brands. We are not just changing the eCommerce industry, we are launching it into the next universe of retail.

What we are looking for

We are looking for a driven, commercially sharp Business Development Manager with a strong product growth and product marketing mindset to join our sales team. This is not a traditional sales role — it is a hybrid commercial role for someone who can sell, but who also thinks like a product marketer: someone who can take new products from concept to revenue.

You will help drive the delivery and commercialisation of new products coming out of eComplete Commerce, and you will sell our full product portfolio — including eComplete Commerce DTC, B2B, and Marketplaces (Takealot, Amazon). You will work closely with the product, delivery, and leadership teams to ensure that every new product we build is properly packaged, priced, pitched, and pulled into the sales cycle with the right narrative and process behind it.

You are hungry for solutions, proactive in sourcing opportunities, and energised by the challenge of bringing new products to market. You understand the eCommerce landscape — platforms, integrations, ERP, retail, and digital marketing — well enough to have credible conversations with senior commercial and technology stakeholders at brands and retailers.

Critically, you are AI-native. You use AI tools every day to research prospects, personalise outreach at scale, build pitch content, and accelerate the sales cycle. You know how to combine AI-driven prospecting and outreach with the human craft of selling — and you treat AI fluency as a core commercial competence, not a side skill.

Your role at eComplete

Responsibilities and deliverables will include, but are not limited to, the following:

Product growth & commercialisation

• Partner with product, delivery, and leadership teams to commercialise new eComplete Commerce products — ensuring each product has a clear value proposition, target segment, pricing model, pitch deck, and sales process before it goes to market.

• Act as the bridge between product and sales: pull newly delivered products back into the sales cycle, package them for outbound and inbound motions, and equip the broader team with the assets and talk tracks they need.

• Build and maintain product-specific pitch decks, one-pagers, demo flows, and proposal templates across eComplete Commerce DTC, B2B, and Marketplaces (Takealot, Amazon).

• Develop go-to-market plans for new product launches — including positioning, target client lists, sequencing, pricing, and sales enablement.

New business & pipeline

• Source new business through inbound and outbound lead generation strategies, maintaining a robust pipeline of qualified client opportunities across DTC, B2B, and Marketplaces.

• Manage the full sales process: discovery, pitches, proposals, scopes (with the delivery team), and handover to project management for launch.

• Facilitate and manage the paid discovery process to ensure clients are scoped, quoted, and onboarded accurately.

• Collaborate closely with the Head of Sales / CCO to close new deals across full eCommerce builds, digital contracts, marketplace enablement, and product-led offerings.

• Track, record, and close deals against sales targets — ensuring win-win outcomes for the client, eComplete, and the wider Smollan group.

AI-led prospecting & outreach

• Own and run AI-led outbound prospecting — using tools like Apollo, Clay, Instantly, ChatGPT/Claude, and lead-enrichment platforms to build, segment, and personalise outreach at scale.

• Build and continuously improve multi-channel outbound sequences (email, LinkedIn, follow-up cadences) that combine AI personalisation with sharp, human-quality messaging.

• Use AI to research target accounts and stakeholders — tech stack, recent commercial moves, pain points — and convert that research into relevant, high-conversion outreach.

• Test, measure, and iterate on outbound performance (open rates, reply rates, meetings booked, pipeline created) and feed learnings back into messaging, ICP, and product positioning.

• Stay ahead of the AI-for-sales landscape — bringing new tools, workflows, and tactics into the commercial team.

Sales enablement & process

• Ensure outbound marketing and lead-generation activities are running consistently and producing qualified pipeline.

• Research, plan, and assist the sales team in developing presentations and pitches tailored to each product line and client vertical.

• Maintain commercial discipline across systems (ClickUp, Pipedrive, Process Street) — pipeline hygiene, accurate forecasting, and clean handovers.

• Actively participate in strategic planning for the commercial team and contribute to achieving annual sales targets and strategic objectives.

Minimum Qualifications

• Diploma or degree / NQF level 6 or 7 in a relevant field (Commerce, Marketing, Business, or related discipline).

Minimum Experience

Experience is critical for this role. We are looking for a candidate with demonstrable depth across the following areas:

• 5+ years of experience in sales, business development, product marketing, or product growth roles — ideally with exposure to selling technology or platform-based products.

• Direct experience selling into, or operating within, the eCommerce ecosystem — including DTC, B2B, and/or Marketplaces (Takealot, Amazon, or equivalent).

• Working knowledge of ERP systems and how they integrate with commerce platforms (e.g. SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Syspro).

• Hands-on understanding of platform and systems integration — APIs, middleware, OMS/WMS, and the practical realities of connecting commerce, ERP, and fulfilment.

• Strong grounding in retail — ideally with experience working with or selling to brands and retailers.

• Solid digital marketing literacy — performance marketing, SEO, CRM, content, and how digital channels drive eCommerce revenue.

• Demonstrable experience using AI tools in a commercial setting — AI-driven prospecting, enrichment, personalised outreach, and content/pitch generation. This is a core requirement of the role, not a nice-to-have.

• Track record of closing complex, multi-stakeholder deals with enterprise or mid-market clients.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to professionally lead discovery conversations, run pitch meetings, and present to senior commercial and technology stakeholders.

• Strong commercial acumen — able to structure deals, build pricing models, and articulate ROI.

• Solution-oriented, with the ability to investigate and resolve issues independently or with internal support teams.

• Proactive and confident in communicating with and managing client expectations.

• Comfortable operating internal company systems (ClickUp, Pipedrive, Process Street) and contributing to improving them.

• Excellent English business communication skills (verbal and written).

• Working understanding of Shopify, Magento, marketplace platforms (Takealot, Amazon), and the broader digital commerce landscape.

• AI-fluent — uses AI tools daily for prospecting, outreach personalisation, research, content, and sales productivity. Comfortable building and running AI-augmented outbound workflows end-to-end.

• Familiarity with modern sales-tech and outreach stacks: Apollo, Clay, Instantly, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, sequencing tools, and CRM enrichment platforms.

Skills & Competencies

• Strong team player and excellent collaborator across sales, product, and delivery.

• Technically savvy — comfortable getting into the detail of integrations, platforms, and product architecture.

• Systematic and organised thinker with strong process discipline.

• Growth mindset — energised by new products, new markets, and new challenges.

• Innovative and results-driven.

• Passionate, self-motivated, and commercially hungry.

Growth Opportunities

eComplete is part of the Smollan Group, a global leader in retail solutions operating across multiple continents. This role offers significant career growth opportunities within both eComplete and the wider Smollan digital commerce ecosystem.

Smollan's Digital Commerce division encompasses multiple specialist companies, creating pathways into group-level commercial, product, or regional expansion roles. Sister companies within the Smollan digital commerce portfolio include Híbrido, Machete Systems, OmniShopper, Flixmedia, and Optimizon — providing pathways into group product leadership, regional expansion, or specialist domain expertise.

The role provides direct exposure to enterprise clients, cutting-edge commerce technology, and the opportunity to materially influence revenue growth across a global retail technology group.